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When Cars Meet Politics, a Clash

“Good morning to you all,” Chrysler’s chief executive, Sergio Marchionne, began as he made a surprise appearance last Sunday morning before 700 Chrysler dealers at the annual meeting of the National Automobile Dealers Association. “Although it wasn’t planned, I decided to stay overnight here in Las Vegas to greet you personally.”

But there was another reason, he said: to show the dealers a preview of a commercial that would be broadcast that evening during halftime of the Super Bowl. “Those who have lived through difficulties and have seen the dark days of desperation,” Mr. Marchionne continued, “know that the only way to get through them is by finding the values that are important in life; rediscovering a sense of belonging to a project, a community, a nation; embracing hope; looking ahead; and taking your destiny into your own hands.

“If Chrysler — a company that was practically sentenced to death by the press, the financial world and the public at large — was able to do it, then there’s hope for everyone. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel and there’s always a way to get there. We don’t presume to teach anything or show the right way ahead. We are just one example among many. Our message to the United States is one that comes from people who feel a duty to encourage the country they love.”

The lights faded and a man’s dark silhouette walked onto a giant screen as an ominous rumble swelled on the sound system. “It’s halftime in America, too,” intoned a familiar resonant voice. “People are out of work and they’re hurting.” Only in the closing moments did Clint Eastwood’s face fill the screen. “Detroit’s showing us it can be done,” he said as the music swelled. “This country can’t be knocked down with one punch. We get right back up again and when we do, the world’s going to hear the roar of our engines. Yeah. It’s halftime, America. And our second half is about to begin.”

Overcome by emotion, he bowed his head and turned his back to the audience, according to those present, and there was a moment of stunned silence. It was the first time anyone had seen the video outside a closely guarded circle. Then the dealers rose and started applauding, an ovation that went on for several minutes.

Mr. Marchionne “cried, and then he left the room,” recalled David Kelleher, president of the Chrysler National Dealer Council and of David Dodge Chrysler Jeep in Glen Mills, Pa. “We were all crying, crying and applauding at the same time. We were blown away. We knew what he was talking about. We’d all been through hell and back. No one was more publicly flogged than we were. We were failing. And here we are. We’re making money.”

Photo

A scene from Chrysler”s “Halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial, which was criticized in some quarters as political.

Later that day, “Halftime in America” was seen by an estimated 111 million viewers. Chrysler had seemingly done the impossible: to surpass its acclaimed 2011 Super Bowl commercial, which starred the hip-hop artist Eminem and introduced the memorable tag line “Imported From Detroit.” Coincidentally, the Clint Eastwood spot was broadcast just two days after a report that the unemployment rate fell by two-tenths of a percentage point, to 8.3 percent, buttressing Chrysler’s message that the American economy can bounce back.

Not everyone reacted like the Chrysler dealers. The combination of the strong jobs report and comparisons between the inspirational commercial and Ronald Reagan’s stirring 1984 “Morning in America” campaign seems to have touched some raw nerves. “I was frankly offended by it,” Karl Rove told Fox News on Monday. He then lambasted the rescue of Chrysler and General Motors and insinuated that the ad demonstrated that Chrysler executives “feel they need to do something to repay their political patrons.”

But the $80 billion lent to the two companies came from the administrations of both President George W. Bush and President Obama. And as it happened, Mr. Bush, whom Mr. Rove served in the White House, was addressing the auto dealers in Las Vegas the same day that Mr. Rove took to the airwaves. “I’d do it again,” the former president said of his decision to bail out the auto industry. “I didn’t want there to be 21 percent unemployment.”

Chrysler executives were incensed by Mr. Rove’s remarks. “The former spokesperson was attacking not only a short video, but the essence of the bailout of Chrysler and G.M. while his former boss, the former president, was saying exactly the opposite,” a Chrysler spokesman, Gualberto Ranieri, pointed out to me.

Just as Mr. Rove was thrust into the awkward position of criticizing both his former boss and Mr. Eastwood, an 81-year-old national icon (who told The Los Angeles Times last fall that he couldn’t recall ever having voted for a Democrat for president), candidates of either party who strap their campaigns to the weakness of the national economy run the risk of looking as if they are rooting for high unemployment and economic hardship.

This year that role falls to Republican candidates, but Democrats tried a similar tactic in running against Ronald Reagan in 1984 (which backfired) and George H. W. Bush in 1992 (which worked). Mitt Romney has made President Obama’s stewardship of the economy a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. As soon as the monthly job report was released last Friday, one of his advisers, the Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw, wrote in a blog post that the news increased the probability of Mr. Obama’s re-election by a full 2 percentage points. Mr. Romney himself said: “We welcome the fact that jobs were created and unemployment declined. Unfortunately, these numbers cannot hide the fact that President Obama’s policies have prevented a true economic recovery. We can do better.”

Just a few months ago, the weak economy seemed likely to doom Mr. Obama’s re-election chances. In October, Goldman Sachs’s chief economist placed the likelihood of another recession in the United States at 40 percent and warned that unemployment in 2012 could hit 9.5 percent. But economies can turn when experts and pundits least expect it, as seems to have started to happen last fall. And once they do, they tend to gain momentum for months.

Photo

Sergio Marchionne unveiled the commercial to Chrysler dealers before the game last weekend.Credit
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News

“Taken at face value, it’s a very positive number,” Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, told me. “I think it’s too early to say that we’re off and running, or that the coast is clear, but it feels very good. I speak to clients and it feels like a light switch is going on. They’re profitable; they’ve got strong balance sheets. Can they hire? They could have before now, but they lacked the confidence. Now they feel good. It feels like this is evolving into a sustained expansion.”

If Mr. Kelleher, the Chrysler dealer, is any indication, Mr. Zandi may be right. Mr. Kelleher said his dealership was reduced to 38 employees at the low point of the recession. Now it has 61, and he’s looking to hire more. “I’m at the epicenter of customer sentiment,” Mr. Kelleher said. “I’m on the showroom floor every day. I can tell from the traffic. I can tell when people feel like spending. I never bought into the double dip. We over-worried about Europe. We just got these great employment numbers. People have jobs, and they want to spend their money.”

Predictably, Democrats have been taking credit for the strengthening recovery, and part of what annoyed Mr. Rove was that an Obama campaign adviser, David Axelrod, instantly called the Chrysler ad “very powerful” in a Twitter message. Taking credit can also be risky if the economy turns again, but Mr. Zandi says he believes the administration deserves some credit.

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“No one policy effort ever makes or breaks the economy, but the totality makes a big difference over time,” he said. “It’s fair to say that a very aggressive response by the Federal Reserve, by the Treasury, and by both the Bush and Obama administrations during the panic and great recession has made the difference. It’s a matter of great debate, but without that response we’d be in a measurably worse place. The real debate should be about how we’re going to achieve fiscal sustainability. That’s the next big thing.”

Mr. Kelleher is a Republican, but said he wasn’t especially political and was dumbfounded by attacks on “Halftime in America.”

“My customers loved it,” Mr. Kelleher said. “I’ve heard from a chorus of people. They filled up my Facebook page. They thought it was monumental. The American people will see this ad for what it is and they’re going to rally behind an American icon that was scarred and down and now it’s risen again.”

Mr. Kelleher said his fellow dealers, Republicans and Democrats alike, were so angered by criticism of the ad that he convened an emergency meeting of the dealers’ council this week and, for only the second time in his memory, the council issued a public statement on behalf of Chrysler’s 2,300 dealers. The video “was designed to relate to those still suffering the effects of the recession, that they may be buoyed by our example and they may find the courage to endure through to similar success going forward.” the dealers said. “We have no doubt that this ad had no political agenda of any kind but rather a statement of fact and hope for the future for all of us and America.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 11, 2012, on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: When Cars Meet Politics, A Clash. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe